Get Rid of Fossil Fuel Subsidies?

Now there is a dream come true.  Well, not everyone would look at it that way.  It would be challenging, to say the least, but it would force us to do with less.  We would be moving in the right direction.

Right now, we are being enabled by the fossil fuel industry.  We are not consciously going to say yes to higher gas prices.  We are paying about $2.36 per gallon here in SW Wisconsin.  The rest of the world does not pay such cheap gas prices.  I don’t know what each country pays but let’s say it is $6 per gallon.  My monthly gas budget would go from $80 to $240.  That is for a car that gets about 30-36 mpg.  Could I find that in my budget?  Possibly.  Well, I’d have to cut out going out to breakfast on the weekend.  Oh, the US is so spoiled . . . including me.

Dharna Noor wrote an article, “Cutting Fossil Fuel Subsidies Could be Even More Beneficial,” on February 8, 2020, on Gizmodo, Earther.  I confess to have wanted the subsidies to end before I even read this article.  And, I realize that people would be angry that their gas went up to $6 per gallon, along with food prices and all consumer goods, but we are destroying the planet.

The article says it wouldn’t change things a lot but I think it is underestimating the impact of what oil alone has on our economy and lifestyle.  I say the world runs on oil.  Not only do we get to work on oil, everything we buy comes from oil.  Noor is looking at what we would do with all that extra money, like putting it into education.  While Noor is doing that, I am thinking the fossil fuel industry is never going to let those subsidies go away.  Never.

A friend brought up the fact that the poor would suffer more with higher prices, which is true. But like Noor says, we could take that money and help the poor.  Ultimately, taking the subsidies away would force us to go local, which is what we need to do anyway.  We can’t afford to ship countless fruits and vegetables from other countries to us in the middle of winter, while the rest of the world is eating seasonally or scraping by just to eat.

And of course the fossil fuel industry wants our gas subsidized . . . then it can continue to do business as usual.  They don’t care about the planet . . . or us.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/cutting-fossil-fuel-subsidies-could-be-even-more-benefi-1841500311